While You Were Sleeping: Virginia Vs ACLU, Indy 500 Throwback and Helicopter Parents Are Taking Over Cars

Anything that obscures or any part of the lettering of a license plate (including a clear or tinted cover that can be seen through) has routinely resulted in Massachusetts a safety failure during a yearly vehicle inspection. The instructions for licensed vehicle inspectors basically told you to fail a vehicle with any such covering over the license plate, even dealership plate frames that obscured the "spirit of Massachusetts" lettering. This is from MASSDOT: Tuesday, August 5, 2014- The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and Massachusetts State Police today reminded motorists that state law requires vehicle license plate numbers to be legible and unobscured by a glass or plastic cover or other device. Chapter 90, Section 6 of the Massachusetts General Laws requires that a vehicle number license plate always be plainly visible with the numbers legible and not obscured by the installation of any device obscuring the numbers. Oddly, a prior court decision seems to challenge the assertion of MassDOT: Color of law: Court rules illegal gun can't be used as evidence against man stopped for tinted license-plate cover By adamg on Fri, 02/07/2014 - 11:21am The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that the fact a man had a transparent blue plastic cover over his license plate was not enough of a reason for a state trooper to pull him over on Rte. 495 in 2011. And because that was the only reason the trooper pulled Michael Bernard over, the illegal gun the trooper found on Bernard during a pat frisk cannot be used against him in a trial for possession of an illegal weapon because the trooper had no reason to think Bernard was doing anything illegal at the time that would warrant pulling him out of his car and frisking him, the court ruled. At issue was whether state license-plate law bans all coverings of license plates, or only those that make their numbers harder to read. "Although the cover has a bluish tint, it does not to any degree obscure or reduce the legibility of the license plate," the court concluded, continuingthat the law does not ban all coverings: The statute does not by its terms prohibit the use of all license plate covers, nor does it mention tinted covers. Instead, consistent with its overall focus on visibility and legibility, the statute prohibits the "installation of any device obscuring [the registration] numbers." "Device" is certainly broad enough to encompass license plate covers. But a cover (tinted or not) does not violate the statute unless it obscures the registration numbers. The regulation likewise does not impose a universal prohibition against license plate covers. Instead, it prohibits only those covers that reduce the legibility or substantially diminish the reflective quality of the license plate The court said the trooper did not help prosecutors' case by acknowledging he always pulled over cars that had any kind of covering on their license plates, because that is clearly a legal error. Had the trooper instead said he pulled over the car because he had trouble making out the plate's letters and numbers, that would have been a different matter, the court said.

Sometimes I regret buying a house in Maryland and not Virginia. This helps.

Amen. Nicely put.